51. Pet Human (4)
51. Pet Human (4)
Gwen's daily routine is mundane.
With all the tendons in her limbs severed, Lea visits every morning to drain the mana that has recovered throughout the day.
Without mana or strength, her body had no power to escape the Colony prison.
Once all her mana is drained, Lea offers Gwen one of her index fingers, coated in her own saliva.
At first, because she believed Lea was The Saint, she assumed the saliva held holy power and drank it without suspicion. But after learning that Lea was not The Saint, but a monster known as a Creature, she made up her mind never to drink it again.
Her day started like that, and she wasn't allowed to sleep until evening.
To be precise, it was an environment where she couldn't sleep.
She had to watch the scene of Medherun City people being eaten by the Ners right in front of her eyes, constantly.
There are two ways humans are eaten.
The first is by the small Ners.
The process of the small Ners eating humans is filled with the humans' screams.
Because the brain, the tastiest part, is eaten last, the victims die late, and their desperate screams enter Gwen's ears for a long time.
The second is by the large Ners.
The large Ners chew the human's head first.
The human's scream disappears, leaving only a final gasp. It's better not to hear the desperate screams, but the sounds that follow are also horrific.
The small Ners eat as if a swarm is gnawing at the prey, so the eating sounds are buried by the noise of the Ners moving.
But the large Ners are different.
The gruesome sound of them chewing the human whole with teeth the size of a person's hand could be heard vividly.
The sound of human bones and flesh being crushed echoed in Gwen's ears.
Gwen had prepared herself.
She knew she would be tortured or that they would slowly break her mental autonomy to brainwash or dominate her.
That was because Lea had directly told her that she wanted to possess her.
Using the violent term "Pet Human," she knew Lea would do terrible things to claim her.
She knew, she was prepared, and she had steeled her heart, but watching at least 10 humans get eaten by the Ners right in front of her every day left her body, heart, and mind devastated.
In the midst of that, an event occurred that greatly shook Gwen's spirit.
A very close friend of Gwen's was brought in front of her to become food for the Ners.
This was truly a coincidence.
In the first place, Lea had no interest in any humans other than Gwen.
Originally, if it was a woman, she should have gone to the human farm, but to deal a blow to Gwen, she just picked one female human.
She thought that while the desperation of a man is terrible, the desperation of a woman would be even more devastating to her spirit.
It just happened to be Gwen's close friend.
The friend who had cherished her more than anyone else and helped her by her side, as Gwen had grown up without parents.
When that friend was thrown in front of Gwen to be eaten by the Ners, Gwen opened her eyes wide and shouted.
To wait. To stop. To call for Lea.
But the Ners did not listen to Gwen.
No, rather, Dagos, who was commanding the Ners, acted even more viciously at Gwen's suddenly changed behavior.
He didn't kill Gwen's friend right away; he played with her.
Clearly, with malice.
He slowly chewed her up in front of Gwen, giving her the pain of being eaten alive.
As much as possible, without killing her, just so she would feel the pain.
==
"Huuu-am."
As expected, this bedroom is more comfortable than the orphanage.
When I was at the orphanage, I always had the thought that my identity might be discovered at any moment, and I think I've grown attached to the bedroom in the Colony without realizing it.
Right now, I'm just lazing around in the bedroom doing nothing.
Recently, I've been moving a countless number of Creatures.
If I had just dipped my finger into the Hive Mind before, this time I had plunged my whole hand into it.
Even I could feel that my consciousness had been eroded, to the point where the Queen's consciousness had grown larger.
But I don't feel afraid of that.
Because my current life is just too enjoyable.
I am living a daily life that is completely different from the hellish routine where I had to worry about surviving every day and nothing ever changed.
I possess the power to destroy this world, and I can live exactly as I please.
Even if it's a path leading to hell, if that path is happy, I don't think the end is hell.
Will I spend every day in a hellish routine and die feeling proud? Or will I spend every day happily and die as a villain?
Anyone would choose the latter.
I spend time lying on the soft, fluffy bed, eating delicious food, and watching Gwen through the video magic Yui created.
And when I get bored of that, I manage the human farm and check on the situation in Medherun City.
"Q-Queen-nim..."
Erina approaches me cautiously.
She is still afraid of me. Her lack of confidence is cute, and I keep her alive because she heals the humans in the human farm in my stead.
If I hadn't felt discomfort, annoyance, or laziness in using Holy Power, I would have gone into the human farm myself by now.
But it's a little different now.
She trembles a little, like a hamster, so I've grown to want to keep her by my side.
Amber feels like an all-purpose maid who is now a bit sharp and highly loyal, Yui is the enforcer, Erina is the hamster, and Narim is the chef.
And Gwen is the Pet Human.
Gwen is slowly breaking, too.
As I said before, I want a Pet Human, not a pet doll.
Looking at Gwen now, it seems like she has the mindset that she would rather just die than submit to me.
But I know.
Humans cannot do everything with mental strength alone.
In the end, humans move based on signals and hormones emitted by the brain.
And I have the means to break that.
It's my saliva.
While keeping Gwen in the prison, I researched my saliva.
To be precise, I researched my own body.
There were several incidents, but I became able to control my saliva simply.
I can make a human who drinks my saliva slowly erode into a Creature, and now I can also choose not to cause erosion at all.
I'm curious about what kind of Creature will be born if a human carrying mana becomes pregnant with a Creature, but I don't want to see a Creature giving birth to a Creature.
So I found a way to control my saliva and succeeded.
The addictiveness is like a drug, but the side effects... I can't say there are none, but there is no problem in living a normal life.
Watching Gwen, who doesn't even react when a human dies right in front of her eyes anymore, just blinking, I thought it was time to start comforting her.
==
"Are you okay?"
I asked Gwen, genuinely worried.
In just one week, her once-intense eyes had become hollow.
In that week alone, over 100 humans had been killed in front of Gwen. Having watched 100 humans get eaten by Ners, it wouldn't be a normal situation.
Furthermore, she had even refused to eat or drink for a week.
Both her body and mind were exhausted.
Gwen's lips were parched, and she couldn't even close her mouth, so I inserted my index finger into my mouth and pulled it out.
Then, I put that finger into Gwen's mouth.
You can think of my saliva as a highly addictive recovery potion.
Slurp.
Perhaps because she still had the will to live, Gwen sucked on my saliva.
Paat.
The moment I saw Gwen's body emitting a faint light and the process of her body being healed, I realized my mistake.
I hadn't realized that as Gwen's body recovered, her mana would recover as well.
Our eyes met.
Gwen's eyes, which had lacked vitality and focus until just a moment ago, were now filled with rage as she looked at me.
I urgently moved my hand toward Gwen's heart, but Gwen's hand moved toward my head first.
Kwaaaaaang!!!
==
"Guhhhhh...!!!"
Gwen clutched her own arm, from which blood was spurting, to stop the bleeding.
As soon as her mana returned, she gathered it to the limit in her right hand and detonated it.
Because of that, her right hand couldn't withstand the explosion and burst. Usually, for a technique like this, one would wrap their hand in a mana shield, but she had gathered even that mana.
An explosion loud enough to shake the entire prison.
Since it was a prison without ventilation, the smoke from the explosion didn't dissipate well, but she thought Lea must have died.
Because she had seen with her own two eyes that as her own hand exploded, Lea's head also exploded due to the mana blast.
'I have to run.'
The entire cave shook from the mana explosion.
Those countless spider monsters must have noticed.
Thinking she had to leave the spot quickly, the moment she turned her body and tried to take a step.
She stopped at the sound of someone behind her.
Gwen turned her head violently.
There stood Lea, completely fine even though her entire head had been blown off.
What gave her goosebumps was that she was walking toward her even without a head.
Naturally, she had thought the head was the vital point.
Because the vital point of all living things is the head. Even if it were a monster.
But Lea had said it herself.
That she was a Creature, an existence different from a monster.
And she had thought the vital point of that Creature was also the head.
Because it was a living thing.
But now, Lea, who had no head, was growing a head as if it were nothing. To be precise, it was regenerating.
Gwen, confirming that the black liquid that looked like blood was moving like a living organism to form a head, urgently channeled mana into her remaining hand and reached for Lea's heart.
'If she doesn't die from the head, then the heart is next!'
Grab.
Lea's hand, which still didn't have a head, grabbed her hand very naturally.
Lea's head, which still hadn't fully regenerated.
But Lea's lower jaw was fully formed.
Then, Lea's mouth opened.
"Fuck."
The sound that came out of Lea's mouth was an Earth profanity that Gwen could not understand.