The Desire to Rise
Dohyung held the switch high for roughly two seconds, savoring the sight of Eunji writhing in agony, before flipping it back down.
"Aaaaaaaaagh... Haah... Haah..."
The mind-shattering pain, unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life, left Eunji unable to collect her thoughts. When they had branded her with the womb tattoo yesterday, the sensation of her flesh burning in real time had been so overwhelming that she had fainted almost immediately, perhaps sparing her from the full extent of the torment. This time, however, she could not even lose consciousness.
"How's that? Electrifying, isn't it?"
Eunji stared blankly at Dohyung, who grinned playfully as he spoke to her from the side. Then she snapped back to reality and screamed.
"Ah... Ah! M-Master! I was wrong! Please spare me! I feel like I'm going to die like this!!"
"Yeah~ You're not gonna die~"
"What? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!"
Dohyung raised the switch again, sending fresh electricity surging through Eunji's body. The returning wave of electric torture made her feel as if she were losing her mind. It was so unbearable that she thought it would be better to be trampled beneath Dohyung's feet or choked while being raped.
Jia and Jiseon, watching from the side, swallowed hard, bodies tense. Jia in particular felt her vision blur at the thought that if Jiseon's attitude had shifted, she herself would have been the one strapped down receiving this punishment. The screams tearing from Eunji's throat carried pure, unfiltered agony without the slightest trace of exaggeration. She wondered whether she could possibly endure it if their positions were reversed.
Jiseon felt the same relief as Jia that she had avoided punishment in this game. The occasional shocks from the chastity belt she always wore were already excruciating, but she could tell that what Eunji was suffering now existed on an entirely different level. If she herself had drawn this punishment, Dohyung would never settle for mere familiar pain. The thought that he would deliberately raise the voltage far beyond anything she had experienced before sent a chill of genuine fear through even Jiseon.
"Aaaaagh! Ah... Haah..."
When Dohyung lowered the switch once more, Eunji's scream choked off as her head slumped forward, body going limp as though she had fainted.
Once Eunji lost consciousness, Dohyung removed the clamps from her nipples with his hand. Seeing this, both Jia and Jiseon assumed today's punishment was finally over. But Dohyung was not finished. He took the detached clamps and fastened them to her pussy and clitoris instead, then flipped the switch up again.
"Ugh... Uh...? Aaaaaaaaaagh!"
The unconscious Eunji jolted back to awareness as the electricity surged through her once more, head snapping backward. The only thing left for her to do was scream through the pain.
Dohyung lowered the switch again, knowing that leaving it raised too long might actually kill her.
"Aaaaagh! Aah... Haah..."
Eunji wanted to beg him to stop, but the electric torture had stolen even the strength to speak. All she could manage was a desperate, pleading look in his direction. Nothing else remained.
"There. Now you've had a proper taste of electricity. For reference, the four-star games also have punishments that fry you with shocks just like this one. The only real difference is how many times it happens."
Dohyung held up three fingers toward her.
"I'm only going to do it three more times. Endure that, and your punishment is over. Think you can handle it?"
Eunji wanted to shake her head, to scream that she had no confidence she could survive even one more round. But the effects of the electricity had robbed her of both voice and movement.
"First one."
"Ah... Ah! Aaaaaaaaaagh!"
The current tore through her body again, and Eunji screamed as though her brain were being burned alive.
Dohyung savored the sound of her screams, the way they delighted him each time he pressed the switch. He continued the torture with the casual precision of someone operating a music player.
Inside the storm of electricity, Eunji genuinely believed she might die from the pain. Of course, Dohyung had no intention of letting her. He had already perfected the exact voltage through experiments on the teachers he had killed earlier. There was no risk of her dying from this.
After the second and third rounds, Dohyung finally removed the clamps from her body.
"All right, it's truly over now. The taste of electricity... Ah, she's completely gone."
Eunji remained slumped in the chair, unconscious, urine pooling beneath her.
Dohyung gestured for Jia and Jiseon to clean up the mess she had made. They rushed forward immediately. Jiseon unstrapped Eunji from the chair and carried her to the bathroom to wash her, while Jia wiped every trace of urine from the chair and floor.
"Well then, that concludes today's game. See you all tomorrow."
Dohyung picked up the electrical device and left the basement.
After giving Eunji a cursory wash, Jiseon carried her back out and laid her on the floor. Both women gazed down at her with something close to pity. Though they had ensured she received the punishment, the sight of her screaming in genuine torment brought them no pleasure. They knew they could easily find themselves in the same position, screaming just as helplessly.
"Mmm... Ah, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!"
The collapsed Eunji suddenly twisted, eyes fluttering open as consciousness returned. The instant she saw Jia and Jiseon looking down at her, she screamed and scrambled backward in terror.
Her sudden flight left the other two tilting their heads in confusion, unable to understand why she was reacting this way.
Eunji stayed like that, curled into a ball with her knees drawn tight to her chest, head bowed, refusing to move again.
Jia and Jiseon considered saying something about her apparent tears, but remembering how much pain she had endured today, they decided to leave her alone. They returned to their places to spend what remained of their free time.
But Eunji was not crying. She was thinking about how she could take revenge on Jiseon for forcing her into that punishment. Her resentment toward Jia was just as strong, yet because Jiseon had been the one to select the loser in today's game, her hatred burned slightly hotter toward her.
She wanted revenge on Dohyung too, but that remained an impossible dream for now, so she set it aside. Instead she focused on pouring out the frustration and rage she had bottled up inside while enduring the electric torture, directing it all toward Jiseon.
Merely remembering the shocks made Eunji's body begin to tremble violently. The memory was so horrific that her body shook on its own, vibrating like a phone set to silent.
"I... I hate... electricity..."
She recalled what Dohyung had said earlier, that even the four-star game punishments included electric torture identical to what she had just suffered. The thought of enduring it again made her feel as if she were already going mad. No matter what, she could not allow herself to receive another punishment like that.
Yet in her current position, even that choice was not hers to make. She held the lowest rank in the basement and had no right to voice her opinions to Jia or Jiseon. In situations like today's, where they selected who would suffer, she now understood she occupied the position most likely to be chosen.
Jia could throw tantrums and harass both her and Jiseon after games ended. To Eunji, Jiseon was no different. If she could not deal with those two immediately, creating a situation where she would not be punished seemed utterly impossible.
'Then what should I do? If things stay like this... I really might lose my mind...'
Eunji did not want to die in a place like this. Not like Taehyun, whose fate she had witnessed.
Dohyung had told them to imagine what happened to him without giving details, but the implication had been clear enough. Dohyung was carrying out these insane acts because of the grudge he held against all four of them. And among the three women here, she alone had seen Taehyun's final moments.
Recalling his broken, inhuman state and imagining the methods Dohyung might have used to dispose of him, Eunji felt a deep terror that she would be the next to go mad.
'No... I don't want to die here!'
She refused to throw her life away in this hell. Therefore, by any means possible, she would push past Jia and Jiseon and rise to a higher position.
The problem was that no clear path existed. Dohyung had assigned their ranks according to capture order, so only his word could change them. Eunji, determined to get on his good side somehow, turned the problem over in her mind until one possible method finally occurred to her.
'Yes. There is a way for me to rise higher than those bitches. But...'
If her idea worked, she might be able to claim a position far above either Jia or Jiseon. The catch was that it did not depend on her will alone. She would have to leave it to pure luck.
If she simply waited for an event whose timing she could not predict, the odds were high that she would break long before it arrived. She wondered whether she should abandon the thought entirely.
The next day arrived.
As expected, Jia drew the slip from the Game Box to begin the new game. The moment Dohyung read the result aloud, the entire atmosphere in the basement transformed.
Yaja Time ★
"All right... Nabi and Kkami, you fucking bitches. Lick my feet."
"Uh... Yes, Habi-nim..."
Eunji sat in the chair and extended her foot. Jia and Jiseon dropped to their knees and began licking it with desperate diligence.
Dohyung watched the scene with an amused smile, saying nothing.
How had it come to this? Because the slip Jia had drawn was the number one game: Yaja Time ★.