Slave of the Witch City
The autumn rain was cold.
The raindrops that struck his skin and slid down, the chill that clung to his salt-crusted blue work uniform—no matter how much time passed, he never got used to it.
"Filthy heavy. Son of a bitch."
Shin Siwoo spat out a low curse as he shoveled the mud clogging the drainage ditch.
Those without the courage or strength to defy the system could only rebel in small, invisible ways like this.
The poncho of a rain-soaked sky pressing down on his back carried the same sour, musty smell he'd only ever known from his poncho back in his army days.
Once he'd shoveled out the clumps of mud that, mingled with fallen leaves, had completely blocked the drainage channel, the standing water finally drained away. The massive ditch, stretching over twenty meters in a straight line, collected every drop of rainwater flowing off the magic library of Trinity Academy.
Thanks to which, he'd rolled around in the muck for a good while.
When he set down the shovel and straightened his back, something cracked audibly.
The one silver lining was that this finished off his morning work for the day.
After this, he could hole up in a back alley until two in the afternoon, gnaw on dry bread, and squeeze in about two hours of sleep.
For Siwoo, who worked more than twelve hours a day, that midday nap was a godsend.
First things first—gotta deal with this damn poncho. Thinking this, Siwoo crawled out of the drainage ditch.
He saw feet.
Small, pretty feet.
"Maintenance worker. Couldn't you do the job a little more tidily?"
Maintenance worker.
Every student, professor, and researcher at this academy called Siwoo the maintenance worker.
It was a convenient label, attached without even a surname or given name—and yet, astonishingly, it counted as remarkably humane treatment.
A respectful form of address, for a slave belonging to City Hall who was regarded as hardly better than livestock!
Depending on the institution one was assigned to, slaves were typically called "hey," "you there," "oi," or simply "slave."
"Yes, yes. My apologies."
After offering an apology he didn't mean a word of, he hauled himself up out of the waist-deep ditch, and the woman stepped back slightly, as though recoiling from something unclean.
At this point, the reaction didn't faze him in the slightest.
"Was there something you needed?"
"There's a class today on the interaction between male bodily fluids and mana. Change clothes and be standing in front of the second lecture hall by noon."
Five years of slave life had a way of sharpening anyone's instincts. The fact that an associate professor had come all this way, in person, to this filthy place had already made Siwoo uneasy.
And as always, ominous premonitions had a habit of coming true.
"If I just wash up and change, it'll barely be eleven..."
"So?"
Siwoo looked up at the associate professor with wounded eyes.
Her lush blonde hair was tied back with a hair tie, neat and immaculate, and her bewitching lips were pressed together in disapproval.
At a glance, she looked thoroughly irritated—but Siwoo knew better.
He knew that in her sapphire-blue eyes, gleaming like jewels, a trace of sadistic delight had seeped in.
"Don't tell me you have some complaint?"
Associate Professor Amelia Marigold, who demanded he flip his entire schedule the instant his grueling labor ended, was a witch positively obsessed with hounding him.
One thing must not be misunderstood here.
Calling Amelia a witch had nothing to do with her being unusually hysterical or insufferable.
It was because the lovely young lady who looked barely past twenty was, quite literally, a witch.
That is—a true witch who had inherited the Marigold Stigma from her predecessor and lived for well over a century.
"No, ma'am. I'll be ready right away."
Siwoo hastily bowed his head in apology.
In this city, witches were a privileged caste.
Privileged to the degree that a slave like Siwoo could be killed for nothing more than a displeasing word, and no one would bat an eye.
"One moment."
Beneath her umbrella, Amelia lifted her long lashes and held him back.
A bewitching aura, perfect proportions as though God had labored over every detail, beauty at its absolute zenith.
Looking at that doll-like figure alone, it was impossible to believe she was a vicious witch.
After a brief pause, Amelia's lips quivered.
"Have you had no change of heart? Five years is more than enough time to reconsider your attitude."
She disguised it with her usual businesslike voice, but there was the faintest hint of hesitation in it.
It was also an invisible, subtle gesture of temptation.
Siwoo's expression went blank for a moment.
Because he was slow to catch the implication hiding behind her words.
In that instant, Siwoo felt fragments of an emotion that had no right to remain.
Pride—and pure stubbornness.
"Nothing's changed. I'm short on time, so I'll go ahead."
Siwoo ripped the shovel out of the mound of mud and turned away without a backward glance.
In the downpour that didn't belong to any autumn, the corners of Amelia's eyes narrowed once more.
2.
"That rotten bitch."
Anger had boiled up to the crown of his head for the first time in a long while. His heart, which hadn't even stirred when she'd nitpicked the finished work, was now pounding loud and fast.
So that's why she kept hounding me all this time—Amelia still remembered that day.
Witches were all the same, every last one of them.
They wielded the mysterious power of magic with immortal bodies and enjoyed every privilege imaginable, yet they nursed grudges over the pettiest things and pursued revenge with obsessive dedication.
Siwoo hated witches. And Amelia, of all of them, most of all!
Unable to curse freely with someone possibly listening in, he was still fuming when a rough hand landed heavily on his shoulder.
And then came a smug, drawling voice.
"Ooh, brother. Why the death face?"
"Who the hell is your brother, you Jap bastard."
"Sharp tongue today too. Anything go wrong, spill it."
In a world this filthy, only one person at this academy would grab his shoulder without a moment's hesitation. The Japanese man from Hokkaido—Mimaya Takasho.
"Where the hell have you been all morning?"
"The spirited male of Hokkaido answers the call of the six-beat, seven-tier pagoda, day or night."
Takasho waggled his pinky finger with a lecherous grin. In other words, while Siwoo had been battling the rain all morning, Takasho had been rolling around in some researcher's or professor's bed.
Siwoo and Takasho had a lot in common.
Both had been kidnapped from Earth to this accursed witch city of Gehenna, both were slaves under City Hall jurisdiction, both were men, and both were twenty-eight.
On the other hand, their differences were stark.
While Siwoo had spent five years in steadfast, miserable servitude, Takasho had secured all manner of privileges by servicing several witches at the academy in bed.
Siwoo's face was painted over with fury once again.
The deep irritation he'd felt from Amelia moments ago only multiplied at the sight of Takasho.
"Do you have no shame? Whose fault is it we ended up like this, and you want to roll around in bed?"
"Yep. My dream's always been to be a kept man. Besides, every woman here is a certified beauty! Compared to crawling between middle-aged housewives' legs back on Earth, this is a promotion—a promotion. Give the stubborn act a rest and climb up with me. Toss aside that worthless pride of yours and it's paradise, I'm telling you."
Takasho grinned so wide his gums showed.
Insufferably chipper bastard.
Every modern human kidnapped to Gehenna, the city of witches, became a slave.
Slave positions came in two varieties: communal slaves under City Hall jurisdiction, and private slaves owned by individuals.
Within this classification, the communal slaves—who at least received human treatment—each had a selling point.
A decent face like Takasho's, or, like Siwoo, exceptional ability deemed useful enough to contribute to official duties.
That's how they put it, anyway; neither Siwoo nor Takasho actually knew the precise criteria.
The only clear fact was that Takasho was putting his host bar experience to work, achieving self-actualization in a land far from home.
"Associate Professor Amelia's got her eye on you, yeah? The way she acts, she's a teenager in heat, no question. I could drop a word in your ear. Butter her up right, and you're living the dream. Strict women like that are absolutely devoted once you melt them once."
Siwoo shoved off Takasho, who had glued himself to his side to whisper.
"Not happening. Fuck off."
"Upright-living youth Siwoo, your attitude might pass for noble scholar's virtue in Korea, but in Japan we call that pigheadedness."
"I said no! Why are you so clingy today?"
"Oh come on, I'm just trying to cheer you up. Aren't you being a bit harsh?"
True to his former host club profession, Takasho had apparently caught on to why Amelia singled Siwoo out for torment.
Granted, Siwoo only remembered it because so much time had passed—back when he was first assigned to the academy, he had refused Amelia's night service.
He'd been hopelessly naive about how this world worked, panicked, and turned her down...
And to think she'd been nursing a grudge ever since, making his life hell. Now that he knew, stubbornness alone made him determined to hold onto his integrity.
Knowing full well it was futile, yet unable to abandon his last shred of dignity—was it all right to call that pride?
"I'm busy. Get out of my way."
"Again? You just came back from a job. The noble scholar's life is a hard one, huh."
Having him poke fun at his side under the guise of consolation was irritating, but Takasho was a good friend.
Siwoo had received plenty of help from Takasho, who lived in far more comfortable circumstances, and beyond that, he was the only person Siwoo could truly open up to.
His army buddy from two years of shared military service had become a close friend—so what need was there to say anything about a friend from five years of slave life together?
"So what's the job this time, assistant?"
"'Assistant,' my ass. Fuck's sake..."
While Siwoo rolled his eyes, Takasho's face lit up with interest.
"Don't tell me—it's... that class?"
"Yeah. That class."
Where Siwoo slumped his shoulders in despair, Takasho looked genuinely baffled.
"Then why so gloomy? I'd love it."
"Of course a degenerate like you would."
"You have no idea how much gazing upon fresh, blooming apprentice witches soothes my soul."
"A word from the old-timer: touch an apprentice witch and it's your neck. You know that, right?"
Try anything like that and his head would fly off—no metaphor required.
Already buried in drudgery, he surely wasn't about to reach for the forbidden, too.
At Siwoo's half-terrified look, Takasho laughed heartily and answered.
"Sometimes just admiring the flower from afar is happiness enough. Anyway, that's what I wanted to say—can't I go in your place?"
"Believe me, I wish you could. But it's Associate Professor Amelia's summons, so there's nothing to be done."
"You really do suffer for nothing."
Takasho clicked his tongue in exaggerated sympathy.
To him—a man insane about women since birth—it probably sounded like rich man's whining.
But for Siwoo, who possessed an entirely ordinary sense of sexual shame, it was an ordeal harder than any labor.
"Well, I should get going too. You look busy. See you later."
Takasho thumped Siwoo on the back to rouse his spirits and disappeared down the corridor.
In his words, another waiting guest was calling.
Time was running short.
Washing up and changing clothes would be a squeeze as it was. Heaven knew what nitpicking lecture he'd earn if he broke the deadline Associate Professor had set.
He had to change into his lab clothes quickly and be waiting at the meeting spot five minutes early.
A long sigh escaped him.
"Shit-hole of a city."
Nothing else needed saying.