Chapter 729
Chapter 729
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 729
Chapter Title: Fugitive (4)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Hoo…”
Si-woo, assigned a shabby room on the second floor as his lodging, slipped his hand through the gap in the blinds and peered outside, just like in a detective drama.
Two days had already passed since he'd secured Zlata's cooperation using the Gehenna immigration package as bait.
He'd thrown out quite a few proposals, but it was a real stroke of luck that she was one of the more reasonable witches.
The thought of Big Mother-in-law's wrath already filled him with dread, but he decided to shove it aside for now.
Debt could be paid off in installments, but a life lost was gone for good, no refunds.
In this situation, he needed genuine assistance straight from the heart, not some reluctant teamwork.
Witches slipped in and out through the narrow alleys.
If even one—the witch right in his line of sight now, or the one from next door practically glued to her—caught wind of Si-woo's group, a tip-off was guaranteed.
So outings were out of the question, naturally. Zlata was the only one who could move freely through Hexennacht, and she had a mountain of tasks ahead.
She was the sole person capable of making stable contact with Dorothy, too.
“Sis, that tickles…”
“Ahng…”
That's when strange noises drifted from behind him.
He turned to see a blanket bulging up like a grave, with wriggling silhouettes underneath.
Beneath it lay a tangle of female bodies, slick and intertwined like mating slugs in the midst of copulation.
“Schlurp, schlurp.”
It was Manya, Malisha, and Alice indulging in their affection at all hours, as usual.
Zlata's workshop was so cramped that just storing the herbs was a challenge.
On top of that, Rinne and Ye-bin were using the largest room for treatment purposes, leaving Si-woo to share with the other three.
The problem was Alice making love to her partners whenever the mood struck, privacy be damned.
It was as if the joy of their reunion had morphed straight into carnal hunger.
They said human reproductive instincts peaked during survival crises.
Baby booms after wars made sense, and Si-woo himself had felt his libido explode several times after brutal battles.
He tried to understand their urge to spend even a minute in cozy bliss with their lovers, tomorrow potentially their last.
He really did try...
But there were limits.
Thrusting sounds echoing all day like they were trying to start a fire—it was enough to drive anyone neurotic.
“Let's keep it moderate, yeah?”
The blanket, twitching like a pupa mid-hatch, froze solid.
Alice poked her head out, her hair matted with sweat and cheeks flushed bright red.
“Sorry, were we too loud?”
Manya and Malisha lifted their heads from either side.
“Why not join us, Si-woo?”
“I'm fine with it too! The perfect chance to repay your kindness!”
“I'm good, thanks.”
Si-woo shook his head firmly and lit a cigarette. From behind came the patter of two pairs of feet.
No need to look—he could feel the soft press of breasts against the back of his head.
Hands slipped under his armpits, tugging him closer.
“Aww, come on, play with Malisha too.”
“Manya'll give you the full service.”
Their words sounded straight out of a hostess bar.
“Aren't you bored, Si-woo?”
“You've got nothing to do for a while anyway, right?”
Truth be told, Manya and Malisha's boldness wasn't just about repaying a favor. Nor was it some ploy to curry favor and seize control of the escape plan.
Si-woo was simply that handsome—no aversion even for two women who'd only ever enjoyed each other.
On top of a killer body, he was a top-tier witch-level powerhouse with killer connections and a kind heart to boot?
If they were trying a man for the first time in their lives, they couldn't dream up a better partner.
“Our big sis even said it's okay to play with you.”
“It'd leave us feeling shortchanged if you just take.”
“Argh, I said scram.”
As he waved off Manya and Malisha's succubus-like coquetry from both sides...
Knock knock.
Zlata stepped in.
With Ye-bin and Rinne on the third floor, and Si-woo and the others crammed into the second-floor attic, Zlata carried on business as usual down on the first.
In times like these, suddenly locking up or posting a closed sign would only draw unwanted suspicion.
She glanced at Si-woo sandwiched between the naked Manya and Malisha, frowning ever so slightly.
But she voiced no complaints.
Ever since accepting his proposal, she'd been helping with sincere effort.
She'd even supplied a hefty stock of herbs for Ye-bin's treatments, free of charge.
Without them, treatment would've been impossible from the start—that was Ye-bin's assessment.
“Need anything besides smokes?”
“Nah, I'm good.”
“If it's not too much, I can swing it. Just say the word.”
Zlata's role covered the hideout, herb supply, and Dorothy hookup. As Si-woo started to politely decline...
“Then you got any dildos?”
“Might as well get one with heads on both ends—you know the type?”
“No such thing! Haven't even heard of it!”
Si-woo endured the blatant X-rated banter until the sound of an upstairs door opening drifted down.
Moments later, a drained-looking Ye-bin opened the door.
“Treatment's done.”
2.
Rinne floated through a black void.
A microcosm where unconsciousness and fragmented memories swirled like a storm of stars.
Click.
The scene before her eyes flipped, like changing channels on an old brown cathode-ray tube TV.
Rinne, the pampered youngest daughter of a daimyo whose clan had carved out prosperity amid endless wars.
In an era that viewed sons as possessions and daughters as commodities to sell off dearly, her family was unusually harmonious.
A stern, authoritative father whose love for his family knew no bounds.
An eldest brother who racked up military honors on the battlefields yet doted endlessly on his late-blooming baby sister Rinne.
A second brother with a mischievous streak, but who always brought back exotic gifts from western trading caravans whenever they docked.
A stepmother, originally from the concubine quarters, who had stepped up after Rinne's birth mother passed, claiming the role of castle mistress.
The final family member was quite the outlier.
Black-haired, yet hailing from the distant western continent, she boasted a statuesque height and nation-toppling beauty that beggared belief for a woman.
No matter how pretty, her very skeleton set her apart from eastern folk—to Rinne, seeing a foreigner for the first time, she might as well have been a goblin.
‘Rinne, truth is, I'm a witch.’
The stepmother drew the wary Rinne close and whispered her secret.
Innocent and clueless as she was back then, even Rinne burst into giggles at the earnest confession.
After that day, wariness toward her stepmother shifted to curiosity and an odd sense of kinship.
From a frightening figure to someone weird but fun.
And she really was fun.
She'd put on puppet shows for Rinne late into the night, hold her hand on market trips, or play ball in the backyard.
With her filling the void left by Rinne's faceless birth mother, peaceful days rolled on.
Though outside Stone Castle, war fires raged, black smoke from pyres staining corpse-littered mountains and fields across the skies.
Encircled by sturdy walls, Rinne's family steadily piled up their fairy-tale bliss.
But even the happiest moments must end.
The peace, like a single night's dream, drew to a close on Rinne's eleventh birthday.
In an age without electricity, days began far earlier than for modern folk.
Yet the unidentified racket yanked Rinne awake even before then, in the dead of Yin hour—deep night when even wild beasts huddled asleep.
Screams echoed from every direction.
The clash of weapons. Shouts laced with curses reverberating.
Rain poured outside.
And flames too fierce for the downpour to quench devoured the castle in spots.
She'd learn later it was a night raid by hostile forces.
Thanks to an inside job cracking open the rear gate, the warriors swiftly pierced to the heart of Stone Castle—the royal quarters.
With the garrison away on expedition, leaving the castle hollow, they tore through it like starving beasts.
By the time Rinne slipped through the shoji screens, blood, mud, and corpses jammed every corner.
Her attendants lay dead, stripped bare.
Guards tasked with her protection inside the royal quarters had their throats slit before drawing steel.
Enemy armored warriors piled atop them.
‘Mother, Mother…’
Tears streaming, occasionally retching, Rinne dashed barefoot across the hellish floorboards.
She had to reach her mother.
The mother who'd called herself a sorceress could fix this nightmare.
Her child's heart clung desperately to what had been a whimsical joke.
‘Rinne, are you alright?’
She made it to her mother's chambers without crossing paths with anyone.
There, clad in burial robes Rinne had never seen before, her mother greeted her with a gentle smile.
Her calm tone and demeanor, as if no chaos engulfed them, felt both familiar and utterly alien.
‘Mother, your eyes…’
Rinne startled at her mother's pupils flickering an eerie inky hue in the lamplight.
‘Come here. We have a place to go together.’
She rose with leisurely ease, as if suggesting a picnic, beckoning Rinne—who reached out a trembling hand.
The aura of composure and gravitas pouring from her mother only fueled the naive optimism unique to children.
She could really fix this.
Her mother really was a witch.
Rinne prayed in vain.
‘There, is that better?’
As they traversed corridors, her mother stayed glued behind, tenderly covering Rinne's eyes against the horrors they passed.
‘Yes, Mother.’
Rinne ignored the hard chunks of flesh kicked underfoot, the stench of death clogging her nose.
The hot fluids soaking her socks.
This was a game.
A blind walk with Mother.
‘Watch closely. Remember. Engrave it deep.’
She halted abruptly.
No soft, warm tone remained.
‘Life tolerates no weakness.’
As if a yokai had burrowed in, devouring her mother's insides.
Only heavy, rigid, alien timbre lingered.
‘Mother…?’
‘All tragedies are byproducts of frailty.’
The hand over Rinne's eyes lifted.
Somehow silence shattered, sharp noises stabbing her ears anew.
Rinne beheld it.
There stood her father.
Skewered from anus to mouth on a spear shaft, propped upright like a scarecrow.
There her eldest and second brothers too.
Butchered beyond recognition.
The bandits tussling over carved body parts turned eyes as one to Rinne and her mother.
Blood-mad and ravenous, the pair's tender flesh was just another spoil to devour.
As they charged with cheers, one stepped forth: Rinne's stepmother and master, the ‘Sword Witch.’
Shing.
‘Now, behold.’
Rinne's innate keen instincts clicked.
Her master's purpose infiltrating the family: build a happy home, then shatter it before Rinne's eyes.
Even those blissful days mere illusion.
‘This is the path you will tread.’
Yet Rinne followed, knowing it all.
A twisted helix whipped through the bandit throng.
One life, one death laid atop it.
Her master's sword dance carving through the defilers of father and brothers was...
Truly.
Utterly beautiful.