Chapter 160: The Great Ancestor and Marinated Red Pepper Paste Grill 2
**Warning: Rearguard Content
Although Shia’s exposure lasted less than a few seconds, countless clips instantly flooded the Hunter Gallery, capturing Shia in an incredibly provocative image that seemed almost the incarnation of the very word "seduction," evoking primal human instincts in a way.
As she raised her arm, the sight of her clothes melting off like slime came into view.
While I didn’t know much about science, seeing clothes and rocky walls melt like magma suggested it had an exceptionally high acidity.
"This was unexpected..."
As a Hunter streamer, I was always prepared for the possibility of unexpected situations.
After all, dungeons and monsters remain a realm of mystery that humanity has yet to fully uncover.
There could be any number of bizarre gimmicks, including rooms you could only leave by mating; nothing is too strange here.
But it’s okay.
I don't have this confidence in my body for no reason.
Even if I smashed my neck, burned in flames, fell into a sea of magma, or ended up in a vacuum devoid of air, I was confident I would survive.
Sizzle...!
‘Still, I didn't imagine it’d melt only my clothes like some Tsukuroh visual novel…’
But it’s fine.
It’s been 64 years since I went from a man to the Saintess of the Dead’s body, so it's long past the time to freak out and shout, "Ahh! Perverts!" over showing a little skin.
I am, after all, 85 years old.
Even though I was judged to have a mental age of 21, my mind had long adapted to the experience and familiarity of this body.
What concerned me more than my melting clothes was the possibility that the shockwave or impact of a fight might hurt Olga, but she appeared unscathed.
".............Wow..."
".........."
As expected, Olga, her face deeply flushed like any Mangji Squad member, couldn’t take her eyes off my body.
Menelapie, standing beside her, also seemed fine, meaning that the only real casualty was a bit of my clothing.
No one was hurt, and the ancestor's corpse remained intact, so we could still cook and eat it properly.
Except... Menelapie's expression seemed unusually intense...
Bang!!!
"Wha?!"
At that moment, the drone camera filming my broadcast was struck by a rock Menelapie threw, shattering completely.
Ah, no...
Th-that drone... It hasn’t even been fully paid off... Ugh...
No, well, it's not quite mine to pay off anyway.
The Hunter Association gave me the drone as a kind of surveillance device, a form of support for Returnees.
It was Director Choi Bomi of the Returnee Management Bureau who spoke well of me to the Hunter Association and secured it for me...
Instead of just redirecting the screen, she poured enough aura into her attack to smash the drone camera to pieces...
"Shia!"
I could understand why Menelapie reacted like that, of course.
The broadcast was being streamed to tens of thousands of people when my clothes melted away, which must have been quite a shock and source of outrage for Menelapie.
But it’s okay.
The drone provided by the Hunter Association is an advanced AI drone, equipped with mysterious technology not even released on the market yet.
It has built-in perceptual filters, and it can automatically make blood splatters, unauthorized faces, or grotesque monsters appear cute, as if they were SD characters.
Not only that, but it’s capable of creating a perfectly crafted action-movie-like viewing experience for the audience, so I relied quite heavily on it.
"Shia, Shia! Are you okay? Are you all right!? Y-your body...!"
"My body?"
While Olga and the viewers were likely a little shocked, perhaps Menelapie was the most surprised.
I had to calm Menelapie down first.
I rotated my body side to side and raised my arms to inspect myself.
Wow, it really did a flawless job of melting everything.
The way it completely dissolved the clothes, leaving no visible shape behind, like tissue paper melted in water, was unimaginable.
Perhaps if I’d used the purification miracle quickly, it might have been okay, but I’m human, so I was taken aback by the unforeseen sight of my clothes dissolving.
Still, I felt no pain, so I figured my body wouldn’t be injured, nor would my skin melt away; instead, my skin felt unusually smoother, likely from contact with the highly acidic liquid.
Ahem, now then, let’s see...
Hmm, everything’s fine.
Though I’m noticing it again now, my body is indeed perfect, even by my standards.
"As you can see, I'm perfectly fine."
Still, those clothes were quite good...
It was a pity they melted away without leaving a trace.
"Calling this ‘fine’ is far from accurate! Now, come here!"
With that, Menelapie decisively wrapped me in her own coat.
I remembered to cast the purification miracle all over my body before her hand touched me.
After all, if the ancestor's acidic fluid lingered on her hands and hurt her, it’d be a problem.
However, while the purification miracle removed only the acidity, the liquid itself remained, so Menelapie’s coat grew damp and sticky as it absorbed it.
I’ll have to bathe later.
"Haha, Menelapie. Are you already making a possessive documentary about me? I’m telling you, I’m really fine."
"Ordinary people do not react ‘fine’ when their clothes completely disappear!"
But while I was fine, Menelapie seemed on the verge of bursting into tears.
She didn’t have to be this overly dramatic...
"It's fine, Menelapie. The broadcast has a perceptual filter, so the important parts aren’t visible to viewers, anyway."
"Even so, you must take better care of your body... Didn’t you fight on the front lines during the Demon King war, insisting you wouldn’t get hurt, even shielding the soldiers from their arrows? And be still. The buttons are about to pop open."
".........."
It seemed, unintentionally, I’d pressed one of Menelapie's berserk buttons.
Now that I think about it, there were several instances when Menelapie, even as the Empress who should have maintained restraint, lost her composure where I was concerned.
Now that she’s no longer bound by the title of Empress and has only me to focus on, her characteristic disregard for consequences when it came to me seemed to have intensified.
Objectively speaking, I knew my body was rather beautiful, but it wouldn’t wear out just by looking…
"Shia, didn’t I always tell you… to value your body more?"
"I do value it... Besides, it doesn’t wear out just from looking, right?"
"Ahem! Have you forgotten about the incident where you tried to reveal that precious body to that sly, indecent Dark Witch?! And you’ve always been like this! Even in wartime, you’d carelessly strip off your blood-stained clothes amid crowded soldiers, leaving me utterly aghast! Do you know how shocked I was?!"
"H-hey, why bring that up out of nowhere?! Olga’s here too! Besides, I’ve changed a lot since then..."
"No, you haven’t changed at all! If I took my eyes off you for even a moment, you..."
In the midst of speaking, Menelapie bit her lip hard, her face awash with emotion.
It was her habit to do so when she was furious or overly excited, a way to calm herself down.
"I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to blame you… I think I was just startled by the sudden situation."
"No, it’s fine."
Looking at Menelapie’s face, I could tell I must’ve been wrong in some way.
Menelapie, evidently, had long been deeply concerned about how recklessly I treated my body, and today’s incident likely served as a culmination of that worry.
Honestly, as someone from a previous world, she might not have been entirely comfortable with the idea of me broadcasting myself to a wide audience in the first place.
Perhaps Menelapie’s remarkable understanding of modern society and ability to adapt to it had been exceptional all along…
After fastening the last button on the coat, Menelapie even went so far as to carefully wipe off any remaining liquid from my face and body before finally stepping back.
However, the coat was not particularly long, so it only covered my chest, barely reaching a point that was almost too revealing below.
It felt... well, rather strange.
Not even during the Demon King war did anyone care for the Saintess of the Dead’s body like this, so Menelapie was surely the only one who’d worry this much over me.
"I’m sorry too, Menelapie. I know how you feel about me, but I always end up thoughtless. Maybe this body makes me desensitized to myself over time."
Though I seemed to live nonchalantly, there weren’t that many moments that made me truly feel human.
Even the absurd amounts of food I consumed were ultimately a way of affirming my own existence.
No, come to think of it, we were both unnecessarily apologizing, and this situation wasn’t something to get heated over… Even after all our years together, small things could still make us flare up now and then.
With family or close relationships
, being overly relaxed in words or actions was never wise.
"I’ll really be careful from now on, so don’t worry."
"Understood…"
"But, sisters…"
"Mm? What's wrong, Olga?"
At that moment, Olga, who seemed hesitant to interrupt, spoke up with a timid voice.
She pointed to one side of the underground cavity and looked at me.
"The ancestor meat you caught, sister... it's melting over there."
"Wha...?"
Following Olga's gaze, I looked in the direction she indicated and saw that the ancestor’s body, with its head blown off, was fusing into the liquefied ground as it melted away.
Ah, right.
The acidic liquid that the ancestor spat out was powerful enough to melt rock, but it usually didn’t melt its own body due to protection from mana or innate malevolent energy.
Alternatively, because of the quasi-ethereal nature of the body, it hadn’t dissolved before.
Now, as a corpse, the ancestor’s body was melting into that slime-like liquid, like sugar dissolving in water.
"Kyaaaa! Nooooo!"
Without hesitation, I dove headfirst into the liquefied pit of rock that had turned into a swamp.
To hell with my clothes! The meat is what matters most!!
I can’t eat meat that’s melted and mixed with rock!!
"S-Shia!?!?!"
Sorry, Menelapie! But meat is more important to me!!!
Ah, I should've taken off the coat before jumping in...!
…
...
…No, I should’ve just used tentacles from afar…
Just as I dived into the pit, I belatedly realized that I didn’t have to sacrifice the coat Menelapie had so carefully buttoned up.
What’s the point of a strong body when I have a weak mind…
○○○○
[??]
[?]
[What’s going on?]
[Why’s the screen gone?]
[What happened?]
[Oh, damn, right at the important part]
[What is it?? Why??]
[What’s going on...]
[Show us too!]
[Please, show us too...]
[Seriously, damn...]
[Mom, where are you? Mom, where are you? Mom, where are you?]
[I’m cold... I’m cold... I’m cold...]
Right as the broadcast ended, just before the critical moment, Shia’s chat window turned into a playground for chaos and desire, filled with the vulgar pleas of viewers.
Many viewers, even at the risk of a permanent ban, tried to see Shia’s pure white form, but right before it was too late, the broadcast screen turned black, so to the viewers, it was as if their one and only chance had vanished.
However, even this was explosively impactful.
In fact, the barely-there glimpse of Shia’s form was even more tantalizing, stimulating them at an incredibly provocative level.
[Today, we finally got that rare clip of our queen!](4292)
Reply count: 4,833
[Situation Recap: She was fighting a Shiplani in the dungeon, slipped on some liquid the Shiplani offspring spat out, and her clothes melted away in seconds.
But right before her clothes were completely gone, the stream forcibly ended. Probably the Hero with her broke the drone.
For more details, check the clip.]
[Ooh, nice, nice, nice]
[Holy shit...]
[It was just her clothes melting a little, but it’s seriously provocative.]
[Ha ha, everything critical was covered anyway lol]
[Wow...]
[That… that’s just…]
[It’s not a Shiplani. It’s a godsend.]
Reply: [That’s the truth, it’s a godsend.]
Reply: [At least for today, it’s a godsend, lol]
Reply: [“Godsend,” lmao]
Unbeknownst to Shia, the drone camera had mistaken the acidic liquid as part of her clothes, causing the perceptual filter to fail entirely.
If Menelapie had left the drone camera running for just five more seconds, the whole world would’ve seen Shia returning to her primal form, like the Mother Mountain.
[Nice…]
[Wow, damn; this is it for today.]
[Seriously provocative as hell, damn;]
[Wow... I mean, we usually only get hints of her firm thighs under tight clothes or glimpses of her side chest that barely shows, but, damn...]
Reply: [I wanna squeeze those juicy fruits so badly, damn;]
[Wow, she’s really not wearing a bra, damn;]
Reply: [? That’s right.]
Reply: [Not just without a bra? Judging by the clothes melting, it seems like she’s without panties too.]
Reply: [Oh my god, hahaha]
Reply: [How do you know that???]
Reply: [If she’d been wearing underwear, a basic shape would’ve remained after the outerwear melted. The outer layer melted first, but nothing remained underneath, so she’s obviously not wearing anything under.]
Reply: [WTF, hahaha]
Reply: [Certified “Expert,” lol]
Reply: [I’m gonna lose it, hahaha]
The Genre Hunter Gallery exploded with an endless flood of tantalizing close-up shots of Shia’s barely-there image...
Crack!
"You little..."
Just then, Yeonhwa, who had been watching Shia's broadcast at home for the first time in ages, saw the gallery overrun by inappropriate posts and accidentally froze the blanket she was holding.
These perverted little jerks... Should I just haul them all into court?
No, no… Sister Shia is very forgiving with her viewers… She’d be troubled if I arranged a legal gathering for them.
Besides, she’s kind-hearted and would probably just forgive them...
*Sigh...*
With a deep sigh, Yeonhwa headed to see Yeonju, the administrative officer of the Yeon family.
"Yeonju Unnie."
"Oh, Miss? What brings you here all of a sudden..."
"This."
Yeonhwa showed her smart watch to Yeonju, displaying the current state of the Genre Hunter Gallery as if to say, “Take a look yourself.”
It was a complete mess.
The gallery had been hijacked for three full pages with provocative clips and screenshots of Shia.
"Erase all of it."
"...Ah, yes."
"I’m counting on you, Yeonju Unnie."
Yeonju watched Yeonhwa close the door and disappear before opening the Genre Hunter Gallery on her smart watch.
"...Hmm, what a shame..."
Well, as much as I regret it...
With the young lady’s request, I have no choice.
Yeonju reluctantly tapped away on her computer and smart watch, calling someone.
"Hello, are you the admin of the Genre Hunter Gallery? Why am I calling? I think it’s best to delete all the problematic posts currently taking over the gallery."
[○○○○○○○○○○?!]
"Yes, yes. My masters are displeased. What’s that? You don’t want to? Or do you want to do a collaboration with us? I heard that Yeonseo’s and Shia’s broadcasts are open to everyone."
[...○○○○○○○...]
"Good. You should have agreed from the start. When will it be done? The sooner, the better. Wipe everything. Alright, I’ll leave it to you then."
Less than twenty minutes after Yeonhwa’s visit to Yeonju, all the provocative images of Shia had vanished from the Genre Hunter Gallery and the internet.
But just before Shia’s images were completely erased from existence, Yeonju hit “Save As” on a few of them.
It’s not because she has impure intentions.
She only kept a few as evidence, just in case.