Chapter 729 – #156_Fugitive (4)
#729
1.
“Hoo…”
Assigned a shabby room on the second floor as his lodging, Siwoo peered out at the street through the blinds, just like in a detective drama.
It had been two days since he secured Zlata’s cooperation by using the Gehenna immigration package as bait.
He felt like he had made quite a few suggestions, and it was a relief that she was a witch he could at least communicate with. He was already dreading his great-aunt’s wrath, but he decided to forget about that for now.
Debts could be paid off in installments, but life couldn’t be repaid even in a lump sum.
In this situation, he needed genuine help, not just unavoidable cooperation.
Witches were coming and going through the narrow alleys. If the witch he could see right now, or the witch in the house right next door, noticed Siwoo’s group, they would report them.
Therefore, going outside was out of the question, and Zlata was the only one who could move freely in Hexennacht. She had a lot to do. She was also the only one who could reliably contact Dorothy.
“Unnie, it tickles there…”
“Ahng…”
Just then, he heard a strange sound from behind him.
When he turned around, he saw a silhouette wriggling under the blanket, which had risen like a tomb. Beneath it, there would be a sticky, intertwined orgy of female bodies, like mating slugs.
“Chuuup, chuuup.”
It was the lovemaking of Manya, Malisha, and Alice, which happened all the time.
Zlata’s workshop was so cramped that it was barely enough to store all sorts of medicinal herbs. Meanwhile, Linne and Yebin were using the largest room for treatment purposes, so Siwoo and the other three had to stay in the same room.
The problem was that even in these poor conditions where privacy was impossible, Alice was making love with her lovers all the time. It was as if the joy of reunion had turned into sexual desire.
They say that the human reproductive instinct is most vigorous when survival is at stake.
That’s why there’s a baby boom after wars, and Siwoo himself had experienced a surge in libido after intense battles a few times. He tried to understand their desire to spend even a minute with their lovers in a situation where tomorrow might be their last.
He did try to understand…
But still, there was a limit.
Hearing the sounds of them rubbing against each other all day long was making him feel like he was going to get a neurosis.
“Hey, can you guys keep it down a little?”
The movement of the blanket, which had been wriggling like a cocoon with a pupa hatching inside, suddenly stopped. Alice, her hair wet with sweat and her cheeks flushed, peeked her head out from under the blanket.
“Sorry, was it too loud?”
Manya and Malisha also raised their heads on either side of her.
“Instead of that, would you like to join us, Siwoo-nim?”
“I’m okay with it too! It’s the perfect chance to repay your kindness!”
“I’m good.”
Siwoo shook his head and put a cigarette in his mouth. Then, he heard the sound of two pairs of feet pattering from behind him.
He didn’t even need to turn around to feel the soft sensation of breasts pressing against the back of his head. Hands came under his armpits and pulled him.
“Aing, don’t be like that, let’s play with Malisha.”
“Manya will give you a hot service.”
Their way of speaking was just like the girls at a bar.
“Aren’t you bored too, Siwoo-nim?”
“You said you didn’t have anything to do for the time being anyway.”
In fact, Manya and Malisha weren’t just being so proactive because they wanted to repay his kindness. It wasn’t even a calculated attempt to gain his favor, since he held the key to their escape.
It was because Siwoo’s appearance was handsome enough that the two, who had only ever enjoyed same-sex relationships, didn’t feel any repulsion at all. Moreover, he had a great body, was a great witch-level power user, had a wide network of contacts, and was kind-hearted? They figured that if they were going to have a relationship with a man for the first time, there couldn’t be a better partner than him.
“Our unnie said it’s okay for us to play with Siwoo-nim too.”
“We’ll be sad if you keep refusing us like this.”
“Ugh, get away from me.”
As Siwoo was waving his hands to chase away Manya and Malisha, who were acting like succubi on either side of him.
-Knock knock
Zlata came in after knocking.
While Yebin and Linne occupied the third floor, and Siwoo and Alice’s group occupied the second-floor cubbyhole, Zlata was running her business as usual on the first floor.
She had decided that if she suddenly locked the door or stopped doing business in this situation, it would attract unnecessary suspicion.
She frowned slightly when she saw Siwoo sandwiched between the naked Manya and Malisha.
However, she didn’t voice her complaints.
After accepting his proposal, she had been helping Siwoo quite sincerely. She had also been providing Yebin with a generous supply of medicinal herbs free of charge.
Yebin said that if it weren’t for that, treatment would have been impossible from the start.
“Do you need anything else besides cigarettes?”
“No, not really.”
“If it’s not an unreasonable request, I can grant it, so tell me.”
After all, Zlata’s role was to provide a hideout, medicinal herbs, and contact Dorothy.
Just as he was about to politely decline, Manya and Malisha suddenly interjected.
“Then, do you have a dildo?”
“Preferably one with heads on both ends, you know what I mean?”
“I don’t have anything like that! I don’t even know what that is!”
As he was watching the blatant 19+ skit, he heard the sound of the door opening on the upper floor.
A moment later, a exhausted Yebin opened the door.
“The treatment is over.”
2.
Linne was floating in a black space.
A small universe where unconsciousness and fragments of shattered memories swirled like a storm of stars.
-Click
As if changing channels on an old brown TV, the scenery in front of Linne’s eyes changed.
Linne, who had been the youngest daughter of a daimyo who had built a prosperous power in a time of constant war, had been showered with love.
Compared to the prevailing view of the time, where sons were considered their property and daughters were seen as valuable commodities to be sold off, it was an unusually harmonious family.
A father who was strict and authoritarian but whose love for his family was boundless.
An eldest brother who went to the battlefields and built up his military achievements, but still cherished his late-born sister, Linne.
A second brother who was mischievous but always bought her gifts whenever rare items from Western trading companies that had entered along the new sea routes were brought into the castle.
A stepmother who had originally been a concubine but had taken the place of the mistress of the castle after Linne’s mother had passed away after giving birth to her.
The last member was quite an unusual person.
Although she had black hair, she was from the far Western continent, and she had a tall height that was hard to believe for a woman and a beauty that could topple kingdoms.
No matter how beautiful she was, her bone structure was different from that of East Asians, so to Linne, who was seeing a foreigner for the first time, she was no different from a goblin.
‘Linne, I’m actually a witch.’
The stepmother called Linne, who was very wary of her because of her unfamiliar appearance, and whispered her secret to her.
At that serious confession, Linne, who was still young and naive, just giggled.
After that day, her wariness towards her stepmother was replaced by curiosity and a strange sense of closeness.
Somehow, she went from being a scary person to someone who was strange but fun.
She was actually a fun person.
She would put on puppet shows for Linne until late at night, hold her hand and go to the market, or play ball with her in the backyard.
The peaceful days continued with her, who had filled the void of her biological mother, whom she didn’t even know.
Outside the stone castle, the flames of war were raging, and black smoke from burning corpses was darkening the sky in the mountains, valleys, and fields.
But Linne’s family, surrounded by the sturdy castle, was building up a harmonious story that seemed to come straight out of a fairy tale.
However, even the happiest moments have an end.
The peace, like a fleeting dream, ended with Linne’s eleventh birthday.
In an era without electricity, the start of the day was much earlier than that of modern people.
However, the time when Linne woke up to an unidentified noise was even earlier than that, at the hour of the tiger.
It was the dead of night when even the birds were huddled up and asleep.
Screams of agony were coming from everywhere.
The sound of weapons clashing. Shouts accompanied by curses echoed.
It was raining outside the window.
And flames that even the heavy rain couldn’t handle were burning everywhere in the castle.
She would later learn that it was a night raid by a hostile force.
Thanks to an informant who had opened the back gate of the castle, the samurai who had quickly reached the heart of the stone castle, the Goten, were ravaging the castle, which had been emptied due to the troops being dispatched, like hungry beasts.
When Linne squeezed out through the paper door, the surroundings were already filled with blood, mud, and corpses.
The servants who had been attending to her were dead, their clothes stripped off.
The samurai who had been living inside the Goten and were responsible for guarding and safety had their heads cut off without even drawing their swords.
Samurai wearing armor she had never seen before were also lying on top of them, as if they had been piled up.
‘Mother, Mother…’
Linne ran barefoot across the blood-soaked floor, crying and sometimes vomiting.
She had to go to her mother.
Her mother, who had told Linne that she was a sorceress, would be able to solve this hellish situation.
Her young heart had become so desperate that it clung to a ridiculous and absurd joke.
‘Linne, are you okay?’
When she reached her mother’s inner quarters without encountering anyone.
She was wearing a type of military uniform that she had never seen before, and she greeted Linne with a gentle smile.
Her calm tone and behavior, as if nothing had happened in this chaos, were familiar yet unfamiliar.
‘Mother, your eyes…’
Linne was startled by the way her eyes, illuminated by the lamplight, were shimmering with a strange dark color.
‘Come here. There’s a place we need to go together.’
Linne reached out her hand hesitantly to her mother, who was speaking in a relaxed tone, as if she was suggesting a picnic.
The composure and experience that her mother was exuding, as if she had become a different person, were enough to accelerate the optimistic fantasies unique to children.
She thought that her mother could really solve this.
That her mother really was a witch.
She prayed in vain.
‘Here, does this make you feel a little better?’
Her mother stayed close behind Linne as they walked down the hallway, and gently covered her eyes with her hand to shield her from the gruesome sights they would encounter.
‘Yes, Mother.’
Linne ignored the hard chunks of flesh that she occasionally kicked with her feet, the stench that filled her nose, and the hot fluid that soaked her socks, and repeated.
This was a game.
She was playing a game of walking with her eyes closed with her mother.
‘Look carefully, don’t forget, and remember.’
Her mother, who had suddenly stopped, said.
There was no soft and warm tone in her voice.
‘Life does not tolerate weakness.’
It was as if a monster had taken over her mother, digging into her insides and devouring her.
There was only a heavy, hard, and therefore alien tone.
‘Mother…?’
‘All tragedies are byproducts of weakness.’
The hand that had been covering Linne’s eyes was removed.
Somehow, the silence was broken, and the noise that had been piercing her ears sharply returned.
Linne saw.
Her father was there.
Her father, who had been pierced through from his anus to his mouth with a spear and was standing upright like a scarecrow.
Her first and second brothers were also there.
Her brothers, who had been hacked to pieces and were unrecognizable.
The eyes of the gang, who were vying to cut off parts of their bodies to share the spoils, all turned to Linne and her mother.
The appetizing female bodies that they were facing, excited by the taste of blood, were nothing more than one of the spoils to be devoured.
What stepped forward in front of them as they cheered and rushed forward was Linne’s stepmother and teacher, the ‘Sword Witch’.
-Sreung
‘Now, look.’
Linne, who had an innate and keen intuition, instinctively realized.
That her teacher’s purpose in joining Linne’s family was to create a happy family and then break it in front of Linne.
That even the happy days had been nothing more than smoke.
‘This is the path you will take from now on.’
However, even knowing all of that, Linne followed in her teacher’s footsteps.
A twisted spiral swirling among the gangs.
One life and one death placed on top of it.
Her teacher’s sword dance, which was slaughtering the bandits who had insulted her father and brothers, was truly.
It was truly beautiful.
