Breaking the Newbie
After injecting Taehyun with the shot, Dohyung declared he had no further business here and left the basement. Watching him depart, Jia and Jiseon immediately dropped into Position One, pressing their foreheads to the floor in greeting. Jia forced Taehyun down as well, making him bow toward their departing master. The heavy click of the lock sliding into place echoed through the room, and only then did Jia and Jiseon rise to their feet.
“Haa… At least the collar’s off now. It feels strangely liberating. I never realized freedom could taste this sweet.”
Jia murmured with obvious pleasure as she padded lightly around the basement, exploring it like a cat reclaiming her territory. In the beginning, the chains that had bound her body were so short she could barely sleep with her head on the floor. Later, with Dohyung’s permission, the length had been extended enough for her to move across half the basement. That was the same restricted range Jiseon still endured. Now Jia alone had been freed from any chains at all, allowed to roam the entire space at will. Even the toilet, once forbidden without explicit permission, was hers to use whenever she wished.
Yet Jia had no intention of using it without Dohyung’s direct approval. The mere thought of displeasing him by acting on her own filled her with dread. Her mind had narrowed to a single priority: avoid punishment at all costs. No matter how uncomfortable her body or mind became, as long as she escaped Dohyung’s wrath, she considered it enough.
Jiseon watched Jia wander freely and felt a sharp pang of envy. She longed to throw off her own collar and chains, to move as she pleased. Unlike Jia, however, Jiseon’s thoughts immediately turned to escape. While both women shared the desire to avoid punishment, Jiseon still clung to the hope of breaking out if the chance ever came. Jia had nearly abandoned any thought of leaving Dohyung’s grasp; Jiseon had not.
Of course, every one of Jiseon’s secret calculations was already known to Dohyung. He actually hoped she would try to run. It would give him the perfect excuse to inflict fresh agony on everyone in the name of punishment.
Though these people were targets of his revenge, Dohyung had decided against mindless violence. Beating them arbitrarily would shatter their minds too quickly, and he refused to let such crude methods count as true vengeance. His goal was to make Jia, Jiseon, Taehyun, and Eunji suffer consciously until the moment they died. That required careful pacing.
In the early stages he could torture them brutally to brand his authority into their souls. But once he showed even the slightest mercy, their broken minds would begin to feel gratitude toward him. Jia had already reached that point. Having been the first to be kidnapped and subjected to countless torments under the guise of “atonement,” her transformation was almost inevitable.
Jiseon, still staring at Jia with jealous eyes, stood and strode toward Taehyun. The moment he saw her approaching, Taehyun panicked and tried to scramble away, only to be yanked back by the chain around his neck. He collapsed, choking.
“W-wait! Let’s talk! Why are you all acting like this?!”
“Talk? What is there to talk about? Do you have any idea how nervous you made us earlier, you bastard?”
Jiseon raised her foot to kick him exactly as she had before. Jia stepped between them.
“Hold on, Kkami. If you only beat him, he won’t be able to think straight. Let’s hear what he has to say first.”
“Ah… Yes, Nabi-nim…”
Jiseon had no choice but to obey. Any resistance toward Jia was blocked by Dohyung’s commands. When Taehyun first arrived, Jiseon had seen him as a brand-new stress toy, a plaything she could torment however she liked under the logic that the newcomer belonged to her for training. After all, she herself had suffered endlessly at Jia’s hands: the electric shocks from the chastity belt, the now-familiar torment of the anal plug, and the beatings that came whenever Jia felt like it.
Jiseon had once burned with the urge to strike Jia back, but the thought of Dohyung’s inevitable punishment always stopped her. Better to endure Jia’s abuse than face his wrath. Once that realization took root, Jiseon began speaking to Jia with polite deference, naturally calling her “Nabi-nim.”
Now, just as she was about to relieve some stress by educating the newcomer, Jia’s interference irritated her. Jiseon tried her best to keep the annoyance from showing on her face.
“All right then, Mutt,” Jia said, looking down at the fallen Taehyun with a mocking smile. “You have until bedtime. Speak.”
Taehyun sensed the shift in atmosphere and struggled to his feet.
“What the hell has been going on here? Why are you calling that bastard ‘Master’…?”
“What’s been going on… A lot, really…”
Jia tilted her head upward, gazing into empty space as if reminiscing.
“After reuniting with Master, we were brought here. He wants us to atone for the sins we committed against him in the past. Things like this, for example.”
She touched the butterfly-shaped piercing on her nipple with her fingertip.
“He even gave us new names.”
Jia turned around and presented her backside to Taehyun. The vivid scar of the initials K.D.H. stood out clearly on her skin.
“It hurt like hell when he carved it… but now, every time I touch this scar, I swear to myself that I will never defy Master again.”
Taehyun could only stare in shock. The Jia he remembered had hated any kind of scarring or self-harm. The woman before him now was someone else entirely. Whether she had been brainwashed or genuinely changed, she felt like a stranger.
“So you’d better not resist Master either. Unless you want to be punished.”
“And if you do anything stupid that gets me or Nabi-nim in trouble, I’ll kill you myself,” Jiseon added, clenching her fist and showing it to him.
“You’re all insane… You, her, that bastard—everyone’s lost their minds!! Is Eunji going to end up here too? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!”
Taehyun screamed, remembering the sight of Eunji being taken by Dohyung. It would be easy for Dohyung to drag her here, and the helplessness of having no way to stop it filled him with rage.
“Oh, Eunji? That should be fun to watch. I wonder if Master will force her?”
“Someone as proud as her would probably want to kill herself after something like that, right? Hehe.”
Completely unaware that Eunji had already fallen into Dohyung’s hands, Jia and Jiseon laughed as they imagined her being violated. Jia’s laughter was especially bright. The thought of the arrogant Eunji, who had sometimes looked down on her, suffering under Dohyung filled her with vicious delight. Jiseon felt the same; the girl who had always used money to dig at her heart would finally be hers to torment.
“Is Kim Dohyung doing all this because of what happened in high school? What’s he going to do if the police catch him?!” Taehyun shouted at the two women who were still giggling at the mention of Eunji.
He was stunned to see people he had once been close to laughing at the thought of others’ suffering.
“Well, when I think about what you all did to Master… I can understand wanting revenge.”
For a moment Taehyun thought he had misheard. He couldn’t believe Jia was saying she understood the madman.
“What? What are you talking about…”
“Honestly, I don’t think I tormented Master nearly as much as the rest of you. In fact, I blame all of you for the fact that things have turned out like this!”
Jia’s furious shout made both Jiseon and Taehyun flinch.
“If you bastards hadn’t tortured Master so badly, none of this would have happened!!”
Jiseon and Taehyun were speechless. Jia had participated in the bullying too, and they had never thought she was taken because of them specifically. Yet Jia had always told herself the same thing. She didn’t deny her own wrongdoing, but she believed she hadn’t deserved to be kidnapped and tormented to this extent. Being used like a whore, having sex with Dohyung, even being beaten—she could accept those things. But the piercings, the scars, and the way her own mind had been rewritten until sleeping with Dohyung felt completely natural… she didn’t believe she had earned any of that.
“This is all your fault. Everything that’s happened is because of you!”
Jiseon wanted to scream that Jia was full of shit, but she held her tongue. If she said the wrong thing and Jia pressed the switch, she would be the one in pain. There was no way to stop her from pressing it, and if Dohyung saw it on the CCTV and used it as an excuse to punish her further, the loss would be hers.
Jiseon felt just as wronged. That bitch Nabi isn’t the only one who feels resentful. I didn’t do anything bad enough to deserve having my ass violated like this! Compared to Taehyun or Eunji, I only hit him a few times…
Neither Jia nor Jiseon truly felt remorse for what they had done to Dohyung. They simply believed that others had tormented him far worse, so they couldn’t understand why they were suffering this much. Dohyung knew their hearts perfectly. And this was exactly the kind of situation he wanted. If they ever reached the point of sincerely begging for forgiveness, it would only disgust him more.
“Haa… So just suffer and atone to Master like you’re supposed to. And stop causing me any more trouble.”
Jia stopped yelling at Taehyun and turned to Jiseon beside her.
“Kkami. Why don’t you give the mutt a proper education now? I think you’d do better than me at this point.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to say that. All right, Mutt… shall we begin your real training?”