Chapter 2 How to Steal a Protagonist’s Woman

Enel Corporation(1)

Enel Corporation, a private company in the constructed universe.

Their business was to identify protagonists scattered throughout the universe and sell this information to God’s agents.

The protagonists emitted a high purity and quantity of Enel, a divine resource, influencing not only themselves but also the ordinary people around them.

God’s agents have been attracting these protagonists to their side, targeting the Enel.

These agents were divided into two groups: the righteous ‘Sanctuary’ and the evil ‘Zodiac’.

However, at some point, the balance between Sanctuary and Zodiac was disrupted. Zodiac, overwhelmed by Sanctuary’s superior system, lost not only its ability to recruit talents but also its power to sustain itself.

The problem was that Enel Corporation’s main source of revenue was the conflict between these two factions.

Faced with impending bankruptcy, Enel Corporation discovered something interesting during their research.

Among the protagonists, those in Zodiac’s favor were despairing because they were not receiving attention from the opposite sex.

Especially, the despair they felt when their lovers were taken away could reduce them from protagonists to mere extras or losers.

The CEO of the struggling Enel Corporation decides to make a final gamble.

He devotes all remaining Enel to God to recruit a particular individual.

Number of women dated: 7,568.

Number of women he had sex with without affection: 25,748.

Despite enduring harsh humiliations, every woman fell for this man.

“You are our only hope!”

The CEO of Enel Corporation explained everything to the summoned man, bowing her head in request.

The man, looking perplexed, said,

“Well, it’s true I’ve been with that many women… but it’s a bit different…”

“Different how?”

I said with a smile.

“The women I’ve been with are 2D characters in a computer…”

Confused about the situation?

Let’s go back 10 minutes.

****

-10 minutes earlier-

A man was masturbating furiously while watching a video on his phone.

The video featured the voices of a man and a woman.

[“Come on, say who you are! Look at the camera and speak clearly!”]

[“Ah… I am… ah, exclusively for Mr. Kim Tae… ah, your own, ah, sex, ah, toy!”]

The content was a video of a woman being taken from behind.

[“Ah, so tight. Now, tell your boyfriend how it feels.”]

[“Ah, it’s the best! Ah, the man who took my virginity, ah, his penis is the best! Ah!”]

[“I’m coming!”]

[“Ah!”]

The woman’s head dropped, she convulsed a few times, then collapsed forward.

Leaving the unconscious woman behind, a delinquent-looking man holding the camera laughed and said,

[“Thanks! I really enjoyed that because of you.”]

With that, the video ended.

[“Ah…ah… I love you, Seong-hee…”]

The man, looking like a shut-in, ejaculated onto his filthy phone, and the screen faded to gray.

-fin-

“Keke, what a pathetic guy. The more I see, the funnier it gets.”

I sneered at the man masturbating on the screen.

Just to be clear, that loser isn’t me.

My name is Seong Suho.

I’m the player who just played this game.

The gray screen isn’t reality.

It’s a game.

An adult game, to be precise.

At first glance, it might seem like a game where the male lead masturbates like a lunatic, watching his girlfriend get taken by another man, but it’s entirely different.

This is just the final scene, and the whole game is about this guy named Kim Tae corrupting and seducing the beautiful girlfriend of a popular guy.

The masturbating loser on the gray screen used to be a successful man popular with women at a major corporation.

All the women around him, seniors, juniors, interns, were all trying to seduce this popular man.

The game starts with him beginning a relationship with a colleague he likes.

Then enters Kim Tae.

He methodically seduces all the women around the popular guy, starting with an intern, then the popular guy’s juniors and seniors, and finally his colleague.

And he sends videos of these conquests to the popular guy, shattering his mental state like fine Korean dust.

A typical NTL (Netorare) game.

A cliché I’ve seen time and again.

Yet, I give it a 9.1!

“Clichés are always right.”

A familiar story, familiar seductions, a familiar idiot being cuckolded.

And then…

I chuckled,

“Haha, no matter how many times I play these, I never get tired of them. The last scene always
has to be like this, pitiful and weak. The game developer really knows their stuff.”

I had just completed another adult game.

This week alone, I bought 37 of them.

Still, I had 20 more games left to play.

But a score of 9.1 was rare.

“This is not a game to just pass by. No matter how great it is, I only play once… I guess I won’t be seeing Seong-hee again.”

Unless a game scores a perfect 10, it never sees a second playthrough in my life.

Will I ever find a heroine worthy of that score?

But now, it’s time to focus.

Time to embody Yang Kim-tae.

To perform the sacred ritual that happens once a day, I took off my pants.

“Alright, let’s… Huh? What?!”

Suddenly, colorful jelly sweets filled my vision, dancing and undulating like balloons.

They looked delicious. Despite appearances, I have the taste of an old man and like these sweets.

Ah, but that’s not the point. Suddenly, I was being dragged somewhere.

The room I was in disappeared, and all I saw was an ever-increasing number of jelly sweets.

“Could it be… am I being sucked into the game?!”

Excited, I began to swell with anticipation.

I thought of the games I had played recently.

‘Otherworld Brown-haired Native’? Or ‘Into the Plagiarism’? Ah, ‘Eating the Regressor in the Game’ was a masterpiece too.

But that excitement was short-lived.

“Damn it. Am I being inserted into that pathetic guy from before? That’s a suicide mission.”
And where I ended up was…

“You are our only hope!”

A stunning beauty exclaimed ‘Hope!’ as she gazed at my impressive dick.
***
-Back to the Present-

A silver-haired beauty.

It’s a big deal for me to call a real woman ‘beautiful’, as I’ve never used that term for a real woman before.

She was that pretty.

About 160 cm tall, dressed in a sophisticated suit, with a C-cup chest and attractively long legs hidden by her pants.

I’m not usually into women in suits, but her incredible figure and beauty completely changed my taste.

I am now into women in suits!

This beautiful woman, having heard about my 2D exploits, bowed her head in silence.

Was she looking at my…?

Feeling awkward, standing there without pants, I rambled on.

“Well, I understand everything you’ve told me. But my experience with women is limited to 2D.”

“….”

I looked at the silent woman and thought to myself.

I need pants.

The silver-haired beauty then raised her head and spoke in the same expressionless tone as before.

“There must be a reason why you were chosen. Please, help us.”

“….”

I wanted to ask for something too, like a pair of pants.

Closing my eyes, I submerged into deep thought.

The remaining 20 adult games. The woman is really pretty. I want to wear pants. And so on…

But basically, they’re asking me to play out one of those games in reality, right?

Real women aren’t really my thing….

Except for one.

“Okay, but I have a condition.”

“Please tell me. I will accommodate as much as possible.”

“I want to fuck you.”

“Understood.”

“….”

Isn’t that a bit too quick?

Something in me suddenly went cold.

But my proud thing didn’t lie.

Twitching, twitching. (XX: Amazing!)

Yeah, I get it, but calm down a bit.

Rumbling. (XX: Scramble, GrenaX! Your dick is a drill that will pierce the universe!)

Shut up, you maniac.

But the expressionless woman didn’t undress. Instead, she proposed a deal to me.

“If you can earn ten times the amount of Enel you’ve brought in, I will give you everything. And if you continue to generate profits, you can even use me as a slave.”

“….”

As expected, it’s not fun if it’s too easy.

A game where the woman spreads her legs as soon as it starts?

That’s the kind of game I hate the most.

A woman ready to do anything to protect what she holds dear.

And in the end, she ends up offering everything to me, panting and exhausted.

A game with such a woman is the ultimate game for me.

This is….

“Okay, deal!”

It’s a game!

The silver-haired beauty took me to her office and began the introduction she hadn’t completed earlier.

Even though I still hadn’t put on any pants.

“My name is Armonia, and I am the captain of the Kibotos spaceship and CEO of Enel Corporation.”

“That’s quite a title. But I didn’t see any subordinates on the way here?”

“I am the only employee.”

“….”

She explained that this place, operated by a single employee, was the warp spaceship Kibotos and the headquarters of Enel Corporation.

Enel Corporation used Enel to earn more Enel.

However, they had faced problems with their primary source of Enel, sustaining losses over a long period, and were now on the brink of bankruptcy.

“We used to search for and identify protagonists and sell that information to God’s agents.”

“But you keep saying ‘protagonists.’ How special are they to use such a term?”

“The term ‘protagonist’ is just what the agents of God call them. They command and play with these protagonists.”

Like The Sims?

According to Armonia, there was an infinite variety of protagonists.

Some in fantasy settings with heroes and demon lords.

Others in cyberpunk eras with genius engineers and mad scientists.

Some even in modern settings like mine, with genius artists and insane terrorists.

“The chosen protagonists are limited. Maybe one or two per planet. Think of them as incredibly talented individuals.”

“Ah, they are really something special.”

“The protagonists are fixed; it’s just a matter of who selects them. The first to claim them can consider the planet their property.”

“And they extract Enel from the beings on the planet?”

“Yes, you’re exactly right. All the explanations so far have been about Enel.”

Armonia called Enel ‘the currency of God.’

Not a metaphor.

It was literally ‘the currency used by God.’

“The agents of God collect Enel and offer a portion to God, managing and supervising this universe.”

“And Enel Corporation?”

“We are a space corporation authorized by God, allowed to operate freely in exchange for offering a much larger portion of Enel than the agents.”

So, collecting Enel is the main goal.

“And the way to collect Enel is by breaking the protagonists’ mental state?”

“Yes, the method we chose for the protagonists on the Zodiac side is what you just described.”

“So, I’ll end up fighting Sanctuary? They’re no joke, right?”

“Currently, Sanctuary probably doesn’t even remember we exist. Or they might think we’re finished.”

“But it would be troublesome if they found out?”

Honestly, I’m worried. They’re incredibly powerful.

Aren’t I just going to end up being sucked into a black hole by something like a black hole cannon?

“No, you don’t need to worry about that.”

“Why?”

“We are strictly neutral. Whether it’s Sanctuary or Zodiac, they only do business with us. If Sanctuary attacks us out of personal grudge, God will not stand idly by.”

Fortunately, it seems I just have to do my job well.

Armonia suddenly displayed letters in mid-air.

Wow, futuristic technology.

But my name was floating there in the void.
=======

Name: Seong Suho

-Traits-

[Calmness], [Master of Provocation], [Flexible Handling], [Corruption Desire], [Sociopath]…

“…A status window.”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind, just talking to myself. So, this is like my settings?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Your calm reaction to the sudden summoning must be due to your
[Calmness] trait.”

I’ve always been good at staying calm in my life.

Even when interrupted by family while in the middle of… something, I handle it flexibly.

But….

“I’m a sociopath?”

“The information in the traits is accurate.”

“….”

I couldn’t argue, but it was hard to accept.

Me, a sociopath? Just because I enjoy breaking the mental state of other men’s women in games?

…Is that right?

“The reason I showed you this is that you’ll be going down to the surface for missions. You’ll be able to check information about other characters there.”

“Ah, that would be handy.”

“But it requires Enel.”

“That damned Enel…”

“Please don’t think of it too negatively. Enel is versatile. It can be used to craft useful traits during missions or converted into the currency used there. Anything is possible, if you have enough of it.”

“So it all comes down to Enel, huh…”

It always leads back to Enel.

In conclusion, Enel is extremely important.

But as I listened to the explanation, it seemed to get easier.

At first, it felt too far-fetched with talk of the universe and God’s agents, but after hearing about the various functions, it started to feel manageable.

“I will sincerely assist you in your role, Mr. Suho. I will give you everything except my body, as stated in the contract.”

“Oh, I have one thing I want.”

“Please tell me.”

“Can we change the name of Enel Corporation? It’s too bland.”

“Yes, that’s possible.”

Wow, I didn’t expect such immediate consent.

Truly impressive. Such an immediate answer must come from thorough calculation.

“Tell me the company name, and we’ll operate under that.”

“Ah, the company name.”

“NTL Corporation. How about that?”

“…”

Armonia, expressionless, gave no response.