I’ve Become a Combat Soldier in a Dark Fantasy Adult Game

A combat soldier flew through the sky.
After confirming it was wearing green clothes, I immediately sighed in relief. Though the sight of someone with a face identical to mine flying through the air with limbs torn off was utterly disgusting, I had already grown accustomed to it.

Before me stood a spider yokai.
When we were dispatched, the prediction was that we’d face a mere ghost or a low-level yokai, but what we actually encountered alongside the 2nd squad was clearly a monster approaching mid-level yokai status.

At that level, expendable combat soldiers like us aren’t even deployed. Using us as a delaying tactic would only result in total annihilation within minutes. The effort required to clean up streets painted with blood pulp wouldn’t be worth it.

Ah, while I was thinking, one of our squad’s blue-clothed combat soldiers turned into ketchup.
Of all people, it was the newest recruit in our squad. It wasn’t sad because they were a new member, but because they were the most recently developed combat soldier and thus the most expensive.

I am Anti-Demon Defense Combat Soldier Model 82 Modified, Specimen Number 8211. Unit cost: 16,200 yen.
That one was Anti-Demon Defense Combat Soldier Model 103, specimen number unknown. Unit cost: 32,600 yen.

The name might tickle the fancy of some otaku, but it’s nothing special. It just means Yokai Defense Meat Shield ver 82.1.

Anyway, while the yokai was painting dark red graffiti on the ground with a soldier worth twice my price, I changed our unit’s formation.

My master, the Tachibana family, specializes in yokai extermination. If we hold out just a little longer, the family’s elite will arrive. After all, that’s why our combat soldier unit exists—to buy time.

Shit.
After muttering that under my breath, I watched the yokai’s movements. The 2nd squad leader might be a doll, but he’s not an idiot. He must have realized there was nothing more to gain by continuing to fight here.

As the stalemate continued briefly, the yokai made the first move.

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■!

A scream incomprehensible in human language reverberated throughout the area, and the 2nd squad members who couldn’t block it had their eardrums and brains burst. As soon as I sensed the precursor, I gathered my subordinate combat soldiers and deployed the protective defense technique I had learned from the family’s third daughter, Ohime.

The spider, which had been howling with enough force to break through the wall I created, watched me with its numerous eyes. Oh? It seems displeased that I managed to withstand it.

I ordered all squad members to wait far away, and I alone ran toward the spider.
This wasn’t self-sacrifice. It was a rational decision. Among all of us, I had the highest chance of survival.
What would cost them their lives, I could end with just one arm.

My arm can be reattached for 3,000 yen, but reordering those soldiers costs 30,000 yen. If all die, that’s 300,000 yen.

Considering that the family’s second son would torture me based on the cost of losses, this was an unavoidable sacrifice.
The torture would be a hundred times worse. I gritted my teeth.

Running with all my might, I signaled to my squad members. I could hold out for maybe 5 minutes at most. They needed to complete all preparations by then.

First, I scattered shikigami talismans. If used by the young ladies of the main house, these could enable a proper battle, but mine could only scurry along the ground.

But that was enough. This spider was too strong for me to handle, but if the main family’s real fighting force arrived, it would be sliced up in an instant. So rather than being greedy, I focused on binding its feet, which would buy me a few minutes.

I deployed the protection technique the princess had taught me and began my disruption tactics.

It swings. I dodge.
It stomps. I roll.
It tries to bite me. I use an explosion technique to bounce backward.

Seen from the side, it would look like an ugly survival show on repeat, and eventually, due to physical limitations, I stepped wrong and was hit by a spider leg, sent flying like a soccer ball.

A combat soldier standing where I landed caught me, so I didn’t roll on the ground, but blood fragments flowed from my neck.
My internal organs were damaged.

Amid the cursed pain making my head spin, I recalled the past.
The life of Lee Hayeon, a Korean international student in Japan, before entering this damned world.

+++

Everyone has their own definition of what makes a “god-tier game.” Some call a linear visual novel with no choices a masterpiece if the story is good. Others might navigate a minefield of garbage like a ballet dancer, and then glorify all that painful process after seeing the ending, calling it a god-tier game.

I was an ordinary young man from South Korea. With about seven spoonfuls of otaku mixed in.
While other kids studied to get into Seoul universities, I studied with the sole desire to enter Tokyo University. I was confident in my academic abilities, and my Japanese proficiency was decent too.

The problem was the friends I made there.
I must have been an unusually devoted otaku even among my otaku friends, because they would whisper among themselves before quietly handing me a black envelope with something inside.

When I got home and opened it, I found what’s commonly called an eroge.
And one with quite an explicit cover, at that.

As a proper South Korean man, I contemplated for about two seconds whether I should enjoy this pornographic material prohibited by law, but since I hadn’t bought it myself, I decided to enjoy it with a light heart.

Japanese-style fantasy. Modern Japan where yokai run rampant and onmyoji soar through the skies.
Four major onmyoji families controlling the government and the Emperor.

The protagonist begins as a street urchin, gradually building his strength and rescuing heroines in distress.

The setting: unfamiliar in Korea. Perfect score.
The illustrations: beautiful. Perfect score.
The story: appropriately dark and moody. Perfect score.

The problem was the fetishes. Not simply loli or milf level, but dismemberment, gore, cannibalism, coprophagia, reverse rape, rape, hypnosis, necrophilia, gang rape, bestiality, and so on.

With the shocking illustrations that appeared after even minor failures in the story, I fainted.
The guy who lent it to me defended it saying the story was amazing and the true ending was profound. But I threw it away before reaching the ending.

Then at the end of the year, when that game ranked in the TOP 2 of the bishoujo game year-end awards, I seriously wondered if Japan was populated only by bizarre food experts.

That bastard. When I go back, I’ll definitely…

“Cough!”

“I see you’re making sounds, so your internal organs aren’t completely ruined. Treat him and return him to duty.”

“Yes, sir.”

It seemed the situation had been resolved while I was briefly unconscious.
Our squad of 12. 3rd squad of 12. After 24 of us were defeated miserably.

That spider was now collapsed, its form lost and flesh torn apart.

“Combat Soldier No. 2. How long was I unconscious?”

“Three minutes, sir.”

“In three minutes, they came, dealt with it, and even started cleaning up.”

I could only sigh.
The person who handled this was someone I was indebted to… no, someone I was enslaved to—the eldest daughter of the Tachibana family.

The second of the five crazy siblings of the Tachibana.
A lunatic human butcher who had slaughtered more humans than the number of people killed by most yokai.

Tachibana Miyuki.

“Combat Soldier No. 2.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s clean up. We failed in battle, so we must fulfill our duty.”

That way we get hit less.
Whether my intention was conveyed or not, Combat Soldier No. 2 did his best to erase all traces of blood, internal organs, and flesh. Since I couldn’t move my body, I selected the more intact shikigami from earlier to help.

Despite feeling like the world was shit, the night sky was clear.
As I swallowed tears and blood, that thought crossed my mind.