The Rogue Has a Rogue's Code
A rogue has a rogue’s code. To Gyeong Damgan, the pinnacle of beauty was despair. The gaze of someone whose hardened will had crumbled away, plunging endlessly into an abyss of disappointment and frustration—that, he believed, was the very reason for human existence. Yet beauty was always rare. Tormenting the weak until they broke was merely a fleeting amusement, and his long years of artistic experience had raised his threshold so high that even that no longer stirred him much.
Yes. Just like now.
If not for the operation, he would have discarded this lowest-grade material long ago. But when one equates hobby with work, the hobby must inevitably yield. So he had left it alone. Then, out of nowhere, a specimen arrived that surpassed premium, even special-grade—perhaps even the ultimate. How should he carve it to produce the most exquisite despair?
That was the only thought occupying Gyeong Damgan’s mind.
First, he had already decided on the finale. A woman’s collapse usually came at the moment her chastity was brutally violated. So what would happen if he made those rogue bastards she tried so hard to protect watch her suffer all day long? How would that child react? People broke in many different ways. Would the Goddess Sect disciple cry? Scream in agony? Or simply stare with lifeless eyes like a breathing corpse, having given up?
“Khhuhk.”
Just imagining it excited him so much that Gyeong Damgan could not hold back a bizarre chuckle.
Then, before that, how should he torment her? She was a stubborn one who could endure the venom of solitude that shredded anyone’s nerves and made them collapse. Did that mean she would not yield to physical pain?
In that case, how could he slowly destroy her mind? A method that offered a thin thread of hope so she would not give up, while gradually rotting her soul from within…
Gyeong Damgan had just thrown off his pants and was enjoying a pleasant time with these delightful fantasies when—
The door burst open and a subordinate rushed in.
“Vice-Leader! You must come out right—huk!”
Faced with cosmic horror from the visual stimulus, the subordinate could not continue his report.
“…You bastard!”
Gyeong Damgan flew forward and seized the subordinate by the throat. Disturbing his most pleasurable moment and witnessing his superior’s disgrace both warranted the death penalty, of course.
“Guhk…”
As the subordinate lost consciousness, he thought: Fuck, with the hand that’s choking me right now—fuck, fuck, you filthy, fucking impotent bastard—why don’t you just use a sword instead…
Gyeong Damgan tossed the limp corpse aside and locked the door himself. It had been the idiot’s own fault for not locking it in the first place, but thanks to that, every martial artist in the Blood Sect was now in trouble.
“When is the Vice-Leader coming?”
“I sent the youngest, so he should be here soon.”
“The youngest left ages ago! Why isn’t he back yet?!”
The youngest who had gone to call the Vice-Leader never returned, and there was still no word from the Vice-Leader either.
“Aaaagh!”
The Blood Sect martial artists stamped their feet in panic, unable to do anything but stare at the situation.
It had all started at breakfast.
“Woman, get up!”
“Ugh. Sleeping on this cold floor made my whole body ache. I couldn’t even sleep properly. What the hell?”
Cheong, who had enjoyed an uninterrupted, deep sleep all night, grumbled. The jailer who had been forced to listen to her steady breathing, occasional cute little snores, and the soft rustle of her blanket all night was utterly dumbfounded.
“Here. Breakfast.”
“Oh. Breakfast right after waking up? I like that part. So, what is it? Did you bring something tasty?”
Cheong was always polite to whoever brought the food. After all, being rude to the person in charge of your meals meant they might do who-knows-what to the next one.
“How carefree. Do you really not care about the likes of us at all? Here. Rice balls. Take it.”
“Rice balls…”
Cheong studied the jailer. The size of the large rice ball in the man’s hand was generous and pleasing, but he held nothing else. No soup in the morning… Still, at least they were giving her breakfast.
“Thank you for the meal.”
Cheong bowed politely and reached through the bars. Just as her beautiful, slender fingers were about to touch the rice ball—
Plop.
With an obviously deliberate flick, the rice ball fell and dropped freely. The perfectly round ball hit the cold stone floor and splattered with a wet smack.
“Huh?”
“Heh heh. Did you think this was some restaurant? Look. This is your future.”
The jailer ground his foot into the rice ball. The poor thing was reduced to nothing but food waste smeared across the floor.
“This is all you get to eat. Heh heh. Looking at it now, you really are the greatest beauty under heaven. When will it be my turn to… khat, eat that?”
When Cheong reached for the rice ball, the jailer had sneered back. Her hand, which had been slowly stretching out, suddenly left an afterimage as it twisted. In an instant, it clamped onto the man’s ankle.
“What? Hey—!”
While the startled jailer was still confused, Cheong reached out with her other hand and seized his opposite ankle as well.
“This bastard is messing around from the crack of dawn. The one thing I hate most is people who fuck with food.”
“Let go! Let go of me! What kind of strength is—!”
The panicked jailer tried to shake her off, but the ankles gripped in her hands might as well have been rooted to the ground. There was nothing he could do against Cheong’s monstrous strength.
“Excuse me? If I keep pulling like this, what do you think will happen?”
Cheong was sitting on the floor, leaning forward with both arms stretched through the bars, holding the jailer’s feet. Between her two arms stood one very solid iron bar.
The color drained from the jailer’s face. The moment he drew the sword at his waist—
Cheong straightened her back and simply lay down backward. The jailer’s legs shot into the cell like cannonballs. Then, with a sickening crack, the space between his legs slammed into the iron bar. Bone met steel.
The jailer’s eyes rolled back and foam bubbled from his mouth.
But it was only the beginning.
Cheong began kneading his feet as if giving a massage, working her way up his thighs. With gruesome crunching sounds, the bones shattered and his legs went limp like octopus tentacles.
“Kyaargh!”
The sensation of crushing raw bones into tiny pieces made Cheong shiver with delight.
Wow. How long has it been? This… this is really, truly… better than I remembered. This is living.
Cheong grinned savagely and spoke in a playful tone.
“Shh. Dear customer, your legs had a lot of knots. If I don’t loosen them properly, you’ll keep walking and running. People should lie down or sit, right? Who walks around standing up all the time?”
“Aaaargh!!!”
Finally, both of the jailer’s leg bones were ground down as fine as sand. Cheong twisted his legs together into a single knot.
“Graaaagh!!!”
Less than half an hour later, the jailer’s voice had gone hoarse, yet he continued screaming. At the sound of his agonized shrieks, the Blood Sect martial artists rushed over.
“W-what are you doing?! Let go! Let—aaagh!”
A Blood Sect warrior who tried to pull the jailer away in shock had his wrist grabbed instead. After his head was slammed hard against the bars, his now-softened arm—thanks to Cheong’s bone massage—was wrapped twice around the bar and pulled back inside, tied in a clumsy knot.
After that, none of the remaining Blood Sect warriors dared approach the prison cell. The youngest among them was kicked in the shin and sent running to fetch the Vice-Leader. And that brought them to the present.
“Do you want your hostage back? Then please deliver my requests. One plate of stir-fry loaded with meat, two bowls of freshly cooked rice. For the soup… hmm, something light and clear? What does your chef specialize in?”
“Shut up! Right now—!”
“Aww, this restaurant’s service is terrible. Then I’ll have a clear fish soup, boiled thoroughly with freshwater fish for a refreshing taste. One bowl of that. Then I’ll return the hostage. That’s all. I’ll repeat it. One plate of meat-heavy stir-fry, two bowls of rice, and one bowl of clear fish soup.”
It felt like two different hallucinations were ringing in Cheong’s ears. The absurd nonsense coming from the Blood Sect bastards, and the sound of her own insides boiling with rage.
“That crazy bitch—where the hell did they drag up someone like her? Where’s the Vice-Leader?”
“That’s… there’s the youngest’s corpse in front of the door…”
The warrior who had now become the new youngest delivered the news.
“Who gives a shit about that right now?! Why aren’t you bringing him?! Go right now, you bastard!”
Fucking hell. The youngest swallowed his curses and ran off again. But he had no intention of knocking on the door. He planned to just stand in front of it and report only when it opened on its own.
Thus, the second youngest also went missing.
“Oh my. It’s been so long since I placed my order, yet there’s still no news? Did the person who went to cook the rice decide to plant the seeds first? At this rate, I’ll turn into an old lady.”
“Just shut up already!”
“Ah. I’m so scared. So scared that my hands and feet are shaking and my fists might fly out on their own. Wow, look at how much my hands are trembling.”
With those words, Cheong grabbed the hair of the warrior whose arms were tied to the bars and slammed his head against the iron bars repeatedly.
“Ack! Ack! Ack!”
The screams bursting out in time with the thud thud thud were genuinely entertaining. When she felt the bar begin to crack, Cheong quickly let go.
The iron bars glistened red under the lantern light.
“H-how should we… the Vice-Leader…!”
“Damn it! Just give her what she wants! Bring it to her!”
In the end, they had no choice but to provide her with a satisfactory breakfast.
Cheong neatly set the tray that came through the feeding slot inside the cell, then approached the two Blood Sect warriors tied to the bars.
“Still, thanks to you, I had fun. In your next life, please live virtuously so you don’t have to suffer like this.”
Cheong’s hand turned pitch black. Then—
Crunch!
The head of the warrior with his arms tied exploded like a watermelon. The headless corpse slid down the bars, still bound by its arms.
The half-paralyzed, legless, impotent jailer let out a horrified gasp and twitched. The pain in his legs was so severe he couldn’t even scream; his mouth simply hung open.
“S-stop! You clearly said you’d release the hostage!”
“Me? I only asked if you wanted your hostage back, didn’t I?”
With those words, Cheong crouched down and raised her Black Killing Demonic Palm high. The warrior whose legs were twisted together met her eyes and begged.
“S-spare me… please spare me…”
“Three hundred and fifty points.”
“What the—!”
Crunch!
Another headless corpse slumped forward, legs still wrapped around the bars. Cheong moved to wipe her face, then paused. She used the inside of her sleeve to clean the foreign matter that had splattered onto her.
“Ah, how refreshing. Exercise really does help the food go down better. Eating right after waking up feels a bit off, though.”
She walked over to the neatly placed tray and began her breakfast. Even in that moment, the Seomun Su-rin-style beauty techniques shone through. A peerless beauty of the world sitting demurely and eating was indeed a beautiful sight.
The Blood Sect warriors could only stare at her in blank amazement. They were stunned, dumbfounded, and yet somehow still captivated by how pretty she was.
Gyeong Damgan finally appeared just as Cheong was nearly finished eating. The moment he showed his face, he released his solitude instead of greeting her. Cheong, who had been reaching for the last precious piece of meat with her chopsticks, frowned deeply at the rising nausea.
Damn it. Even dogs don’t bother people while they’re eating.
Cheong hurriedly chewed and swallowed the food in her mouth, then rolled sideways across the floor to the opposite side of the tray.
“Ugh…!”
It was a somewhat unnatural scene. Gyeong Damgan felt a strange sense of dissonance, as if something was off, but the seductive moan that tickled his ears made him quickly forget about it.
“Stop… please stop…”
Satisfied by the desperate plea, Gyeong Damgan stopped spraying his venomous fluid.
“Causing a ruckus from the very morning? Is this how a righteous heroine of the orthodox faction uses her hands—so cruelly?”
“Didn’t I tell you I was from the rogue path? Is the old man already getting dementia? Wait! Stop the solitude! I said stop it. Just a little. Haa…”
Cheong was already growing tired of pretending to be in pain. They said real pain didn’t produce screams anyway. From now on, she decided to just keep her face planted on the floor and let her body tremble.